


bite my tongue, bide my time

by HeartonFire



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Attraction, Clint Barton Is a Good Bro, Developing Friendships, Fluff, M/M, Pining, Pre-Relationship, Secret Crush
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-22
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:14:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23777425
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeartonFire/pseuds/HeartonFire
Summary: Clint didn't mean to spy on Bucky at the shooting range. Hereallydidn't mean to get a crush on the guy while also trying really hard to become his friend and make him feel welcome in Stark Tower. But when did anything in his life go according to plan?
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Comments: 30
Kudos: 133





	bite my tongue, bide my time

**Author's Note:**

> For the unstoppable, incredible [tellthemyes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tellthemyes/profile) ([quandjebois](https://quandjebois.tumblr.com) on tumblr), who pulled me into Winterhawk with both hands, brainstormed this fic with me, and beta'd this so wonderfully and thoroughly to make sure everyone was in character and everything made sense. <3

It wasn’t Clint’s fault.

Really. It wasn’t.

It was an accident.

It was really Tony’s fault, for designing the tower with so many nooks and crannies for someone to accidentally hide in, and for not pushing harder against Steve’s dumb ideas.

It was Steve’s fault, for bringing Bucky here in the first place and being so damned stubborn all the time. He was the only one who could have convinced Tony that this was even a good idea, bringing Bucky here.

No, actually, it was really Bucky’s fault, for looking like _that_. What was Clint supposed to do?

The first time was, honestly, an accident. Clint was trying to get some practice in at the range, get back to fighting shape for the next time the Avengers got called to do something insane like fight aliens from outer space. It was happening a lot more than he had bargained for after New York. The least he could do was be prepared.

He had his coffee. He had his favorite sleeveless shirt on. He was whistling the jingle from one of those personal injury lawyer commercials that was always on, ready to shoot some arrows.

He was so caught up in his own thoughts and in the dumb song stuck in his head, he almost didn’t notice that there was someone else in the range until he nearly walked in on them.

The bang of a gun startled him, and he blinked at the figure standing in one of the bays. 

Bucky had only recently moved in. Steve insisted he was safe now, _deprogrammed_ , whatever that meant, but he had barely left his room since arriving. Clint had seen him maybe three times since the first day Steve had brought him by to introduce him to everyone. 

It wasn’t that Clint had been avoiding him. He trusted Steve, and Bucky _seemed_ fine, but he also seemed a little overwhelmed at the sudden onslaught of people around him. It made sense, given his history, and his isolation for so long, and Clint had decided he wasn’t going to be part of the crowd that swarmed him every time he came out of his room. He’d give him a nod, the occasional hello, and leave him alone. That had been the plan.

But Clint had never seen Bucky like this: metal arm outstretched, fingers clasped around a handgun, shooting at a target like it had personally offended him. The kickback didn’t even shake him a fraction of an inch, and Clint didn’t have to see the target to be sure that every bullet went straight through the center. Bucky knew how to shoot, and he knew how to shoot well. Clint had assumed that to be true, what with him being the Winter Soldier and all, but seeing it was something else.

Clint slid through the door and behind a column when Bucky’s head turned towards the sound of his shoes scuffing against the floor, holding his breath. He didn’t know why he was hiding. It wasn’t weird for him to be at the range, and Bucky didn’t have a problem with him as far as he knew. He was making it weird by hiding like this.

But Clint felt exposed, here, now. He hadn’t meant to intrude on something Bucky was doing alone. It was probably good for him to do things on his own. He had been controlled by other people for so long, and now that he was here, everyone was always watching him, especially Steve. Clint didn’t want to mess that up for him. But he also didn’t want to leave and miss seeing Bucky this way. He peeked around the edge of the column and saw that, thankfully, Bucky wasn’t looking his way anymore. He was focused back on the target in front of him, staring down whatever he saw at the end of his gun.

He looked relaxed in a way Clint had never seen. His shoulders were down, eyes bright with something that almost looked like joy, and as he switched seamlessly to a rifle, muscles shifting beneath his t-shirt, Clint realized just how dangerously competent he was. He had eyes, so he already knew Bucky was a very attractive man, but this was an added layer that Clint had not prepared for. He didn’t know he’d had to.

He was in trouble now.

He remained in trouble for the rest of the week, too, sneaking down to the range when he thought no one would notice. It felt like a secret, something dirty he was doing, but he couldn’t stop himself. He couldn’t stop watching Bucky doing trick shots like the ones Clint remembered from the circus, tricks no one should ever attempt, much less pull off so effortlessly. 

It wasn’t just the shooting, either. It was the ease that emanated from Bucky as he was doing it, lithe and nimble and insanely skilled, like the gun was part of his body, like shooting was as easy as breathing. Clint got that feeling every time he picked up his bow, but he had never seen it from the outside before. It looked good on him.

It didn’t help that Bucky had taken to wearing shirts that were at least two sizes too small for him, a few days after Clint started his little trips to the range. Clint blamed Steve for that. Bucky probably thought that was the new style. Whatever the reason, Clint could see all the curved ridges of his abs, the stretch of his shoulders, the tension in his chest. He might as well not even wear a shirt, with the way his current selection clung to him. 

And the thought of that, of Bucky, shirtless, still moving with that feline grace in an entirely different context, was haunting Clint’s dreams. And sure, he had had worse dreams. He had had nightmares for months after what Loki had forced him to do, and this was certainly not that, but still. It was hard to look the guy in the eye when they happened to cross paths in the kitchen when Clint was spending a little too long in the shower most days, trying to release the tension that was relentlessly building, the longer he watched Bucky, fantasized about him. His own hand turned into Bucky’s and he wondered what that would be like, for Bucky to touch him, to stroke him, to lay beside him. It was pointless, imagining all the ways it could work, because there was really no way that it could. 

But no matter how hard he tried, his crush just kept getting worse.

About a week after he first happened upon Bucky’s private shooting practice, he stumbled onto basically the whole team, lazing around on the couches in the lounge and trying to decide what to watch. This sort of thing didn’t happen all that often, except on Tony’s mandatory movie nights every couple of weeks. He always picked the movie and it was always some “classic” he insisted they would all love. They rarely did.

“No. I don’t want to watch this,” Natasha said, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’ve already seen this episode.”

“Then what do you suggest?” Steve’s voice was getting that edge he pretended didn’t mean he was frustrated, but totally did. “You’ve shot down every idea.”

“Just not _this_ ,” Natasha shot back, turning to Bucky, who shrank back a bit. Clint didn’t blame him. When Natasha was riled, like she was now, she was not someone to be trifled with. “What do you want to watch? I’m sure he’ll listen to _you_.”

Bucky froze, eyes wide and searching as he glanced back and forth between Natasha and Steve. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I’m fine.”

He stood so quickly, everyone tensed a little. Clint knew it was just their reflexes responding to the sudden movement and the residual threat he could potentially pose, but he saw Bucky’s face fall as he left the team behind, hurrying down the hall to retreat to his room.

An awkward silence fell over everyone left on the couches. Steve sighed, running a hand through his hair before standing to follow Bucky. Natasha picked up the remote and switched to an action movie that was more explosions than dialogue, and no one said a word about it. It wasn’t really Clint’s favorite thing, so he decided to head back to his own room to watch something more his speed.

Clint accidentally overheard Bucky and Steve arguing as he walked down the hallway, leftover slice of pizza in hand. He wasn’t trying to eavesdrop, but he had never heard either of them yell like this before. He had never even heard Bucky talk this much before.

“I told you this was a bad idea! They don’t want me here, except to use me against you in these dumb arguments. That’s not fair.”

“That’s not true! _I_ want you here, and so do they! You just have to give them a chance to get to know you!”

“What, like you do?” Clint could almost imagine the sneer on Bucky’s face as he said it. “Like you know anything about who I’ve been, what I’ve done.”

“I know some.”

“Yeah? What do you know about it? You know how they wiped me? You know how they made me do those things? Kill all those people? You don’t understand, Steve. You couldn’t, and neither could they. They’re scared of me, and I don’t blame them.”

“Give them a chance, Buck. Please.” The sadness in Steve’s voice was palpable. He wanted his best friend near him, but things weren’t working out the way he planned. Clint could understand that. His whole life had been made up of things not going the way he planned.

Clint slipped into his own room before anyone caught him listening, but he kept playing the conversation over and over again while he sat on his own couch, old episodes of _Dog Cops_ droning quietly in the background. 

Maybe his original plan was wrong. Maybe by staying away, he was making things worse for Bucky, making him feel unwelcome. He certainly wasn’t going to tell him that he maybe wanted to see him naked, because that definitely wasn’t what he needed right now, but Clint could hang with him, be a friend to him. He knew exactly how it felt to be an outsider, to have no one to lean on. He had felt that way since he had joined the circus. No one had wanted him around, not even his brother, and it had hurt. It still did sometimes, when the real superheroes got going and Clint was left with nothing but his bow and arrows. He was an Avenger, but he was the least popular Avenger for a reason. He still didn’t quite fit in, except with Natasha, and she was busy at SHIELD these days. She was never too busy for him if he really needed her, but he felt like he had hardly seen her in the last few weeks.

Clint was also maybe the only person in the whole building who knew what it was like to have someone else, someone malicious, take total control of what you did and who you did it to. All of them knew what had happened to Bucky, but it was something else to know what it felt like to not be in control of your own brain, your own body, for someone to force you to do things you didn’t want to do, things that hurt people, killed people. That was something that none of the others had experienced. Clint was glad they hadn’t; it wasn’t an experience he ever wanted to repeat and it wasn’t an experience he’d wish on anyone, but it was still something that you couldn’t really understand unless you had been through it yourself.

Clint didn’t sleep much that night. Something about the argument had reawakened some of his own horrific memories of being Loki’s puppet, and when he closed his eyes, he saw all the blood and the death and the destruction that he had wrought on Loki’s behalf. Even though it had been against his will, he did those things, and he could never unsee them. He could never undo them. And he had only been under Loki’s control for a few days. Bucky had been HYDRA’s killing machine for _decades_. He could only imagine what kind of toll that took on him, now that he was his own person again. Maybe Clint could help with that, as his friend. New plan.

Shuffling into the kitchen around four in the morning, he poked at the coffee machine, loading it up with as much coffee as he could fit in the filter, and sank onto a stool to blearily watch the liquid fill the pot. 

He propped his head on his hand and felt his eyes closing, hard as he tried to keep them open. His head jerked upright just before it fell to the stone surface, and there was a cup of coffee steaming in front of him. For a second, Clint thought he was dreaming, but no, it was real, and it was hot, and it was everything he needed.

Humming happily and ignoring the scalding temperature, Clint gulped it down eagerly and reached for the pot again. It was too far away, and he heard a whimper leave him when his grabby hands failed to make contact. He was going to have to get up, but now that he was sitting here, he wasn’t sure he could manage it.

It was only when a hand picked up the pot and brought it over to him that he realized there was someone else in the room, and it was only when he saw the glint of the morning light on the metal arm attached to the hand that he realized that that someone was Bucky.

Clint choked on the mouthful of coffee that was already in his mouth and nearly spit it out all over Bucky, as he poured fresh coffee into Clint’s cup for him. Right, time to put his new plan into action, if he could manage to swallow his coffee and avoid completely embarrassing himself.

“Morning,” he said, as cheerfully as he could manage on so little sleep.

“Long night?” Bucky asked, watching Clint carefully, like he wasn’t sure how he was going to react. They had never really talked before, just the two of them, and after the previous night, Clint couldn’t exactly blame him for being cautious.

“Didn’t sleep,” he said.

Bucky shook his head. “Me neither.”

“Want to watch _Dog Cops_?”

Bucky smiled cautiously, like he thought it might be a trick. “Okay.”

“Come on. I’ll catch you up.” He flopped onto the couch and turned on the TV. Bucky followed, sitting on the other end, sitting up straight and stiff, like he was on guard. 

By the time Clint was finishing his fourth cup of coffee, Bucky had relaxed beside him, eyes fixed on the screen and arms clenched around a spare pillow.

“I like this show,” he said, so quietly Clint almost didn’t hear him.

“Me too,” Clint agreed, and Bucky shot him a shy smile, ducking his head before Clint could get a good look. That was probably for the best, given that Clint was trying his best to be Bucky’s friend right now, not the guy who had been fantasizing about him for the better part of a week. Considering how handsome he was normally, if Clint saw Bucky smile, full-on and this close, he wasn't sure he’d be able to control his reaction.

Bucky seemed about to say something else, but just then, Tony came barreling into the kitchen, banging cabinets while he searched for whatever it was he was looking for. Bucky instantly tensed at the noise, dropping the pillow and sitting up straighter again, like he was ready to bolt.

Steve came in from his morning run at around the same time, glistening with sweat and gulping down a bottle of water in three gulps. He spotted Bucky just as Bucky stood to leave, and his brow furrowed. 

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Just watching _Dog Cops_ ,” Clint offered, when Bucky didn’t respond. He was watching Bucky now, unsure how exactly to help him. He could see the tension radiating off him, in the way he held his shoulders and the frown carved onto his face. He had been so relaxed, just minutes before, but the appearance of Tony and Steve had erased that peace so thoroughly, Clint wasn’t entirely sure he hadn’t imagined it. Sleep deprivation could do that sometimes.

“Oh. Good. You okay, Buck?”

Bucky shrugged and pushed past Steve, disappearing back into his room. Clint tried to stay and watch by himself, but he couldn’t focus and turned off the TV after just a few more minutes. It was nice to have someone to watch TV with, even if they didn’t really talk. He wanted Bucky to feel comfortable here, and he didn’t want him to leave, and that had nothing to do with his attraction to him. 

Clint’s new plan was a good one, and he was determined to make Bucky feel welcome -- even if it meant he had to get even sneakier about watching him at the range. He was sure, if Bucky figured out what he was really doing, he’d run, and Clint couldn’t blame him. He had no explanation for his behavior.

Clint knew he should just stop going down there, as part of his new plan. He knew that was the right move. His crush would go away with enough time and space, and then he could live in the same space as the guy without drooling all over him. Besides, the stories of Bucky Barnes, heartbreaker, were almost legendary, and all those stories revolved around the ladies. Clint was just signing up for his own particular brand of heartbreak if he kept doing this, instead of just being Bucky’s friend and helping him settle in with the team.

But Clint was nothing if not self-sabotaging to the point of destruction, so he kept creeping down into the range and hiding in the conveniently placed vent by the door to watch as Bucky obliterated the targets faster than Jarvis could replace them. He just couldn’t help himself. Something kept drawing him to Bucky, and there was no fighting it. 

He also maybe wasn’t trying that hard.

By two weeks in, his crush was impossible to deny, and it wasn’t going away, but he still wanted to be a good bro and be there for Bucky when he could. He liked spending time with Bucky, and he liked being a person that Bucky could maybe feel comfortable with, at some point, almost as much as he liked watching him shoot.

He definitely wasn’t seeking him out, but when Bucky happened upon him on the roof, Clint slid over and let him sit beside him. The sun was just sliding towards the horizon, turning the cloud-speckled sky pink and orange. A few cars were honking, and Clint could just make out the sound of a police siren wailing in the distance.

“What are you doing up here?” Bucky asked.

“I see better from a distance.” Bucky’s eyebrows shot up and Clint shrugged. “I just wanted to be outside, and I didn’t want people to judge me for wearing sweats.”

Bucky huffed out a laugh, swinging his feet over the edge of the roof like a little kid. “We used to do this as kids, me and Steve.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. We didn't have much money, so we’d climb up to the roof of Steve’s building and just sit and look out at the city. Looks a little bit different, these days.”

“I bet. You’re from Brooklyn, right?”

Bucky nodded, eyes distant and thoughtful.

“I used to have a place in Bed-Stuy.” Still did, but that wasn’t actually the point. Clint didn’t need to get into how he had bought a building out from under the Russian mob and still occasionally got texts from his tenants about maintenance requests. All of that was beside the point, whatever the point was.

“Why don’t you live there now?” Clint had a feeling that Bucky was asking why he would choose to live here, in the tower, with all these people.

Clint shrugged. “I like being here. It’s nice to have people around who get it, at least a little bit, you know?”

“Get it?” 

“Yeah, _it_. You know. The pressure, the danger. The nightmares.”

“You get nightmares?” Bucky was looking right at him now, those bright blue eyes so focused, Clint was pretty sure he could cut him open if he kept looking at him like this.

“Oh, yeah,” Clint said, whistling idly, like it wasn’t a big deal, like everyone had that problem. In this building, they probably did. “That’s why I didn’t sleep the other night.”

Bucky nodded solemnly, and Clint knew he was right to withhold the _other_ reason he was having a hard time getting any rest these days. That was separate to this. He had a plan. Clint was going to get his crush under control and then it wouldn’t be an issue anymore.

Or so he thought.

The next time he saw Bucky, aside from his daily sighting at the range, was when he was lost in a new video game. He didn’t often play games that required him to shoot, but this one was pretty mindless, and it wasn’t bad for practice, since he wasn’t getting much practice in real life these days. The shooting range just happened to be occupied every time he went down there. Go figure.

Clint hardly noticed when the sofa cushion sank beside him, too focused on completing the next objective, but when he had arrived at the checkpoint, he finally looked to his right to find Bucky sitting there, watching with some interest.

“Want to play? I think there’s a multiplayer mode.”

“What is this?”

Clint shrugged. “Some video game Tony recommended. It’s pretty fun, actually. Seriously, do you want to play?”

“You’re sure?” 

“Yeah. Here, I’ll teach you.” 

Clint tugged the spare controller out from under the TV, but the cord was tangled, and he nearly sent the TV toppling over when he pulled too hard. He was surprised that Tony hadn’t sprung for the wireless controllers, but then they’d be digging for batteries. Still, anything was better than trying to disentangle this damned cord with Bucky watching his every move. Once he finally got the controller free, he handed it to Bucky, who held it gingerly, like he was afraid he would break it.

“This button is how you jump, this button is to shoot, and this thing,” Clint said, wiggling the joystick, “is to move. I’m sure the other buttons do things, but I don’t know what they are, so don’t use them.”

Bucky chuckled again, that same bark of a laugh he had let out on the roof. It wasn’t quite a laugh, but it was close enough that Clint got the idea. “Got it.”

It took a little time for him to get used to it, and they had to start over a few times, but for someone who had never played a video game before, Bucky was a natural. It wasn’t really a surprise, after watching him all those times at the range, and it was nice to have someone to play the game with. They even settled into an easy sort of functional communication, pointing out enemies and finding resources, and Clint wasn’t actually sure how much time had gone by, until he looked up to see the sunlight fading and the automatic lights coming on around them. There was someone clattering the pots and pans in the kitchen while they made something for dinner that smelled like garlic and tomatoes. Clint hoped it was pizza.

“Oh man,” Clint said, rubbing his face with his hand and stretching. He was stiff, after hunching over for however long they had been there. “Guess we should take a break, huh?”

Bucky nodded, though a hint of a frown wrinkled his brow. “Sure. Yeah. Thanks for this.”

“No, thank you! I couldn’t have cleared that last map on my own.” It was probably true; he had been pinned down in a corner and would have had to reload if Bucky hadn’t sniped the enemies surrounding him from the opposite roof. Once he got a hang of the controls, he was exceptionally good with even a virtual gun, and that seemed really unfair.

Bucky shrugged and stood, avoiding eye contact with the group that was gathering in the kitchen and heading for his room. Clint stayed where he was, pleased that his new plan was working. 

Being Bucky’s friend was nice, easy in a way Clint hadn’t expected, and it was what Bucky needed right now. Clint knew that if Bucky wanted anything beyond friendship, and _if_ he was into guys, Clint would be at the very bottom of the list of people who should go anywhere near him. He was good at hook-ups and not much else. He knew that about himself. The last thing Clint wanted to do was start something with Bucky and then end up hurting him by doing something stupid or insensitive, which felt inevitable, given his history. Bucky had been through enough already, and Clint was going to stick to his new plan and be Bucky’s friend. He wanted to do that for him, no ulterior motives or anything. He could do that.

And yet, he still couldn’t stop going down to the range when he knew Bucky would be there. It had become a routine, as much as Clint ever had a routine, and he couldn’t find it in him to break it now.

As if the tight shirts weren’t bad enough, after nearly a month of Clint sneaking down to watch him shoot, Bucky decided even a t-shirt was too constricting, and tugged the damn thing off over his head, to reveal his chest, his shoulders, all those muscles Clint had fantasized about, and somehow the reality surpassed anything Clint’s brain had come up with. Scars lined Bucky’s skin, but that didn’t change anything about Clint’s attraction to him. He had plenty of scars of his own, and he knew the scars you could see were never the worst ones. Seeing them made Clint realize he wanted Bucky to really open up to him, trust him, share those scars with him, let him share his own. He wanted to know what else could make Bucky smile like that, what his favorite foods were, what he used to like, before HYDRA manipulated and tortured him into their deadliest tool. Maybe they could watch _Dog Cops_ together again sometime, but this time, maybe they could cuddle on the couch. 

In the middle of the thought, Clint realized what he was really thinking about. He didn’t want to just hook up with Bucky or just be friends with him, he wanted to _be with_ Bucky. He had been compartmentalizing wanting to make Bucky feel welcome and wanting Bucky, with an emphasis on the first option, but the lines were becoming increasingly blurred. And oh no, this was so much worse than when he started all of this, when he was imagining Bucky as a particularly muscular body that might touch his own, totally separate from the person he was playing video games with and watching early-morning TV with and talking to up on the roof. At least then, it was easy to pretend it was just a fantasy, just something that got him going, something that had nothing to do with reality. This was something different, something that was softer and more vulnerable, and it could only lead to disaster. He knew that from experience.

“What are you doing?” Natasha asked, voice rising just above a whisper, right next to his ear. Clint jumped. Damned spies, sneaking up on him. 

Bucky shot her a tentative smile and a nod, before turning back to the task at hand, which included shooting directly into the center of a target without even looking and switching to another gun to shoot behind his back. If he noticed anything strange, like a stray archer lurking in the shadows, he didn’t acknowledge it. Clint might as well not have been there, which should have been a good thing, but he was surprised how much it hurt when Bucky didn’t acknowledge his presence.

“Nat! Hi! I was, uh, just looking for you?” It came out as a question, and Clint winced, cheeks burning with the shame of being caught. He would have given anything for the floor to open up with some secret trap-door Tony hadn’t told them about, if it meant he didn’t have to be here, in this spot, right now.

“Oh?” One perfectly manicured eyebrow rose, and Clint wanted to stick his tongue out at her. He didn’t, but he definitely thought about it. Anything to distract from the deeply strange scenario she had just walked into. Her eyes narrowed, and he knew it wasn’t working.

“Yeah. And now I found you. Mission accomplished. Bye!”

Pushing past her and taking the stairs two at a time, he tried to outrun the inevitable conversation he knew was coming. Unfortunately, having a spy for a best friend meant she always found the secret ways to get where she wanted to go, and she was already sitting on his couch when he got back to his room, hands folded daintily in her lap, that damned eyebrow still cocked curiously at him.

Clint sighed and made a big show of making a pot of coffee. He did need some caffeine, if they were really doing this, but mostly, he was just hoping she’d leave if he took long enough. His chance of success was low, but he was feeling a little less than chatty given the circumstances.

“So,” Natasha said slowly, mouth curving into that half-smile that could cut a man if she wanted it to. “Bucky Barnes, huh?”

“What about him?” Really, Clint knew better than to play dumb with Natasha. She knew him well enough to know that he knew what she meant. But he wasn’t in the mood to give her any more than he had to. He was determined not to crack. 

“Come on, Clint,” she said, rolling her eyes at him. “You’ve been down there every day at the same time for weeks, and you thought I wouldn’t notice?”

Sighing again, Clint leaned back against the table, folding his arms like that could protect him, like anything could at this point. She already knew. This was the infuriating (and sometimes extremely helpful) thing about being friends with Natasha: she was always about three steps ahead of him.

“Nothing can come of it, so what’s the point of talking about it?”

“You’re sure about that?” 

Clint shrugged, trying to focus on the gurgling of the coffee pot behind him, instead of the swirl of emotions making his stomach turn. He didn’t actually know how to describe how he felt at this moment, except for overwhelmingly embarrassed at being found out. He had really thought he was being sneaky, but he probably should have left that to the actual spies. 

“Well,” she said slowly, eyes dancing with that dangerous mischief that only she could bring, “I may have talked to him.”

His heart dropped into his stomach, adding to the unsettling stew already down there. “You did what? When? Why?”

“I talked to him,” she said, raising one finger. “Yesterday.” She raised another. “And because I knew you wouldn’t do it yourself.” She raised a third. “Those all your questions?”

Far from it, but she knew that already, from the smirk on her face. “And?”

“And what?” she scoffed, glancing down at her nails, which Clint knew would be perfectly manicured. They hadn’t had an assignment in the field for a while, and Natasha always liked to take care of herself. She said it was something she could do to take control of her own body. Clint understood that.

Shaking his head, he tried to get back to the point. “What did he say?” 

“Ask him yourself.”

Before Clint could say another word, she was gone, sauntering out the door like she hadn’t just blown up his whole day. She was torturing him on purpose now, and she knew him so well, it wasn’t hard for her to be good at it. What was even the point of a best friend if she wouldn’t tell you what your crush thought of you? Thanks for nothing, teen movies.

Grabbing the pot of coffee, he sank down onto the couch, staring up at the ceiling. What was he supposed to do now? It was bad enough that he had been caught, but Bucky hadn’t even looked at him. He must have been so disgusted by Clint, once he realized what was going on, he didn’t even want to acknowledge his existence. Clint couldn’t blame him. He had known the whole time that what he was doing was deeply, deeply weird and more than a little creepy. 

But he couldn’t just leave it that way. They both lived in the tower, and if Clint really wanted to be Bucky’s friend, which he did, he needed to clear the air.

“Jarvis, can you tell me where Bucky is right now?”

“Sergeant Barnes is in the lounge, sir.”

“Is he alone?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Thanks, Jarv.”

Heart pounding against his ribcage, Clint forced himself to get up, put the coffee away for later, and follow the hallway towards the lounge. It was now or never. The last thing he wanted was to make things even more awkward or uncomfortable for Bucky. He just needed to find a way to explain himself, and avoid all the other contributing factors that would definitely add to Bucky’s inevitable and understandable discomfort with him.

“Uh, hey, Bucky,” Clint said, with a half-wave that just made the awkwardness worse, shifting his weight where he stood in the doorway. He felt like he couldn’t enter the space without permission, after, well, everything. “Can I talk to you?”

“Sure,” he said, putting aside the book he was reading and looking up at Clint with those blue eyes, so clear and bright Clint felt like he could see straight through him. As Clint approached, to join him on the couch, he realized he probably should have kept his distance, but he didn’t need to make things weirder by backing away. Bucky was looking at him with an intensity that startled him, and Clint had to clear his throat a few times before he could even start his next sentence.

“I’m, uh, sorry about earlier.”

Bucky frowned, head tilting to one side. “Why are you sorry?”

Sighing, Clint rubbed a hand over his face. Why was no one making things easy for him today? “I interrupted your practice session. I know you don’t get a lot of time to be alone, and I’m sorry for messing that up for you.”

The frown deepened, and Bucky leaned a little closer. “You didn’t interrupt me. You were very quiet.” It was like he was intentionally not understanding what Clint was saying. Words were not cooperating with him today, and neither was anyone else, apparently. 

“Well, then I’m sorry _Natasha_ interrupted your session.”

Bucky’s face relaxed into a smile as he shrugged. “You didn’t have to leave, you know.”

“Yeah, I know, but I figured, you’re still getting adjusted, and I wanted to give you space and I didn’t want to force you to hang out with me when you wanted to be alone.”

“You haven’t forced me to do anything. I like hanging out with you.”

“That’s good,” Clint said, trying to move past what Bucky had just said and ignore the swoop of pleasure that settled in his chest at the words. He needed Bucky to understand that he didn’t mean to do this and make things weird between them. “I just wanted you to be able to settle in, get into your own routine, do what you need to do.”

“But you were watching me,” Bucky said slowly, eyes laser-focused on Clint’s face, like he was trying to find the answer to a question he hadn’t actually asked out loud.

Caught, Clint figured he might as well admit the part of the truth that wasn’t so scary. “Yeah. Your gun skills are impressive.” 

“You think so?” Bucky shifted even closer, and Clint’s breath caught in his chest. It was really unfair for a person to be this good looking and to be this close to him. The combination wasn’t helping him in his struggle to find the right words to make all of this weirdness go away. 

“Uh, yeah. You know that, right?”

“Sure, but it’s nice to hear.”

“Right. So, are we good?” Clint cleared his throat again, ready to finish this conversation and get back to normal. He just needed to smooth things over and get out. That was the plan -- and he was going to stick to this one.

“Yeah. Can I tell you something, though?” Bucky was so close to him now, Clint caught the scent of his shampoo, and he had to force himself not to run his fingers through Bucky’s hair. He was sticking to the plan, even if Bucky was making it hard for him to remember exactly what the plan was, at this particular moment. “Showing off for you was the most fun I’ve had since I got here.” He looked down after he said it, bashful in a way that Clint would not have expected from him. It was impossibly endearing, and Clint’s heart felt like it might burst if he didn’t do one of two things: get the hell out of there, or kiss Bucky. Right now, he wasn’t entirely sure which option to take.

Wait. “You knew I was there the whole time?” Being caught today was one thing, but if Bucky knew from the first day, and every day after that, then that was an entirely different level of mortifying. 

Bucky laughed softly. It was a real laugh this time, throaty and deep. “I didn’t mind. I like being around you, and I figured you’d talk to me about it eventually.”

“So you were teasing me, with the shirts and then the no shirt and then whatever this is?”

He nodded, teeth sinking into his lower lip in a way that made Clint want to do the same thing. “Yeah, a little. Is that okay?” 

Clint sputtered, brain short-circuiting at the look on Bucky’s face and the sensation of his metal hand falling to Clint’s knee, surprisingly warm and unsurprisingly heavy. He was so sure that Bucky was going to back off any second, say he was joking.

But he didn’t. He stayed there, not moving away, but not getting any closer either. He was waiting for something, and Clint was desperate to know what it was, but he couldn’t ask without _looking_ desperate, and his mind was whirring so fast he didn’t actually know what any of his individual thoughts were at the moment.

Bucky seemed to realize, after a long, charged moment, that Clint was incapable of speech right then, and he leaned towards him again. “I wanted to be near you. Couldn’t think of a better way to make that happen.”

“Oh.” Finally catching on to the very real situation unfolding here, Clint had to add one more speed bump to this on-ramp he very much wanted to take. “But I thought you liked girls.”

Bucky laughed again, low in his throat. He wasn’t laughing at Clint, and Clint had plenty of experience with that to know the difference. It helped, in a strange way, made him feel like they were laughing together, which was not at all what he expected when he came down there. Whatever the plan had been, not only was this not it, Clint couldn’t remember what it was to begin with.

“You always hear about Bucky Barnes, famous ladies’ man, right?” Clint nodded. “Ever wonder why I never settled down with one? Never even went steady?”

“I figured it was the war.”

He shook his head. “No. That was a good excuse, but that’s all it was.”

“Really?” 

“It wasn’t exactly the time to be advertising my preferences, so I let the stories take over. Seemed easier that way.”

“And then,” Clint nodded at his arm.

“Yeah. Didn’t really have a chance, after.”

Silence fell over them after that, Clint’s mind still working through what exactly was happening and how deeply fucked up it was that Bucky had been hiding this part of himself for his entire life. Bucky’s fingers tightened on Clint’s knee, bringing him back to where he was and what they could potentially be doing, if he could just get his head in the game.

“So, have you ever?” Clint gestured between them, hoping Bucky could figure out what he meant without making him explain it. The last thing he needed was for words to betray him again and ruin this for him.

“Sure.” He was looking up at Clint through half-closed eyes and Clint was half-tempted to count each of his long eyelashes. “I might be a little rusty, but could I?”

Clint managed half a nod before Bucky’s hand came up to cradle his face. The first touch of his lips was gentle, soft, sweet, in a way Clint could not have anticipated.

Just as Clint was adjusting to the idea that he was kissing Bucky, Bucky’s tongue pressing into Clint’s mouth, tangling with his own, wet and hot and needy. He groaned at the sensation, his own hands coming up to trace down Bucky’s shoulders, dig into his chest, fist in his shirt to hold him there.

Bucky pulled him closer, until Clint was almost in his lap. He wasn’t used to being manhandled like that, since he was nearly always bigger than his partners, but the size difference didn’t matter with Bucky. Bucky was _strong_ , and the ease with which he was able to move Clint, like he weighed nothing at all, was intoxicating.

He let his teeth just graze against Bucky’s lower lip, and he hummed, the sound vibrating through Clint and making him feel completely out of control. His fingers found the hem of Bucky’s shirt, but before he did anything more, much as he wanted to, he pulled away.

Bucky followed him, chasing the kiss, and that was maybe the hottest thing Clint had ever seen.

“Wait.” Bucky frowned at him, almost pouting, and Clint wanted to lean back in and kiss him again, but he needed to say this first. His history still lingered in the back of his mind, and he wanted this to be different. He needed it to be different with Bucky. “I think we should take this slow, okay?”

Bucky blinked. “Okay.” His frown shifted into a lazy grin. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay.”

“Can I kiss you again?” 

How was Clint supposed to say no to that? As much as he knew it was the right thing, to take things slow, explore this together, at whatever pace they decided on together, he wasn’t about to deny himself the opportunity to keep kissing Bucky. After all the time he’d spent trying not to pursue this, he could allow himself to enjoy this, he realized with a grin to match Bucky’s.

Bucky hardly waited for Clint to nod, before he was kissing the smile off his face. His new plan might be just as hard to stick to as the last one, if Bucky kept this up. The heat of him, the feel of him, the taste of him, it was dizzying, and Clint knew he was in even deeper trouble now.

“Wait!” he said suddenly, and Bucky froze, mouth still open and eyes half-closed. “Did Natasha even talk to you?”

Bucky’s mouth fell closed, and his brow furrowed as he shook his head. “Was she supposed to?”

“Goddammit, Nat,” Clint muttered, curling a hand around the back of Bucky’s neck to pull him back in. He’d deal with Natasha later. That was a plan he could definitely keep to.

Tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! This is my first foray into writing Winterhawk, but I'm so excited to be contributing to a fandom that produces so much incredible content. I hope you enjoyed it, and kudos and comments are always so, so appreciated.


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